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A Huey Freeman Christmas
"A Huey Freeman Christmas" is the seventh episode of The Boondocks. It originally aired on December 18, 2005. Huey's writing his school's annual Christmas play, while taking some creative liberties. Meanwhile, Riley pays a visit to Santa. Plot In the beginning of the episode, Jazmine has a dream where she is preaching in a cathedral-like church to a large congregation about Santa Claus. In her sermon, she preaches about the quote "So be good for goodness sake" from the classic Christmas carol "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town." When she finishes the sermon in her dream, the choir on the pulpit behind her began singing "Ho! ho! ho!" as the people in the congregation stand up and go into a praise break. In the middle of the praise break, Jazmine wakes up and says "Praise Santa." After spending some time teaching the class about the traditional Kwanzaa Harambee salute, Mr. Uberwitz (Judge Reinhold), Huey's culturally sensitive teacher, approaches Huey in private and offers him the chance to direct the school's Christmas play. Initially skeptical, Huey guardedly agrees after demanding creative control "in writing". Huey decides to seize the opportunity by drafting an entirely new play and crafting it to adhere to his unique vision. Riley, meanwhile, rekindles an old grudge he has against Santa. He attacks him with a chair and a golf club at the local mall before writing a letter threatening more action if Santa continues to refuse to "pay what he owe" (a set of rims he had wished for years ago and never received) — a threat he follows up on in the form of a later assault with airsoft pistols. By the next day, Huey has his entire class working efficiently in an office-like setting and brings in Quincy Jones to co-produce the play. Huey's classmates, though, decide to take some time out to have fun. Upon discovering this, Huey reacts with extreme rigor, firing all the kids. He decides to hire a casting director to help replace the kids, eventually deciding on such figures as Denzel Washington and Angela Bassett as replacements. He ignores all the protests from the PTA who object to their children not being involved. Near the premiere, Huey has a meeting with his school's principal regarding some of the contents of his script. Most notably, the Principal insists that Jesus not be portrayed as black, despite the name of Huey's play being "The Adventures of Black Jesus". Stymied and demoralized, Huey abandons the project the night before the play, giving Mr. Uberwitz the decision of whether to alter the play according to the wishes of the administration or to leave it adherent to Huey's original vision. He chooses the latter, a decision that costs him his job, and Huey's play goes on without one word being changed; regarding this decision, Huey calls Uberwitz "another irresponsible white person." This statement could be directly criticizing Uberwitz himself, or it could be critical of a society that would view such actions as "irresponsible" for a white person. The play winds up receiving outstanding praise from the viewing audience and the local newspaper; however, the PTA boycott prevented more than a few people from seeing it. Huey considers the show a success but sees the error in not allowing his fellow classmates perform. Jazmine, who has lost faith in a black Santa imposter, (Uncle Ruckus) is told by Ruckus himself that Santa couldn't come this year because it was too unsafe with Riley's violent antics. Jazmine is content with the lie but Riley exacts his revenge on Ruckus by popping an airsoft bullet in his face. Jazmine attended Huey's play with Granddad and Riley, but she is the only member from the group to applaud Huey's play. Trivia *Huey is shown to be out of synch with real kids, given he had no clue that the play itself didn't matter (parents wanted to see their children perform). References *There are several references to A Charlie Brown Christmas. *The beginning scene which features the characters flipping throughout the church, is in reference to the James Brown scene in the movie The Blues Brothers. *When Huey explains the story of Christmas to Granddad, at some point he mutes Huey's voice and replace it with a "wah wah wah" sound. This is a reference to when adults talk in the Peanuts cartoons. *Huey also mentioned that Christmas was a Pagan holiday and that Christmas was banned until the 1800s and right when he was about to say that the United States Congress re-established Christmas in the 1800s, it was basically censored with the "wah wah wah" sound. *When Huey is researching for the play on the computer, a poster of "Che" can be seen behind him, as well as a picture of Malcolm X. *Jazmine tells Huey that Christmas is about Santa dying for our gifts, and how he rose from the dead, and moved to the North Pole, and because of that, every year Santa comes down to forgive us of our sins and give us eternal presents." This is an obvious reference to the passion of Jesus Christ recorded in the Gospels in the Bible. *The school Huey, Riley and Jazmine attend is named after J. Edgar Hoover, who founded the present form of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). *At the end of the episode, Mr. Uberwitz is said to have gone on to become a professor of African American Studies at the University of Maryland. Show creator Aaron McGruder was an African American Studies major at the University of Maryland. Category:Episodes Category:Season 1 Category:Episodes with Huey Freeman Category:Episodes with Riley Freeman Category:Episodes with Jazmine DuBois Category:Episodes with Uncle Ruckus Category:Episodes with Robert Freeman